VICTORY LAP – David Axelrod will appear on “Today,” “Good Morning America” and CBS’ “The Early Show” to highlight benefits of the reform bill. The shows were given exclusive behind-the-scenes White House photographs of the president meeting with lawmakers and working with staff leading up to the vote. Flickr photo of POTUS using Rahm’s phone ...Inside the limo

VICKI KENNEDY, to ABC's Jonathan Karl, airing in the 8 a.m. hour of "GMA": Senator Kenendy "absolutely knew it was going to be difficult and ... he talked to me about the fact that the closer we got [to passing reform], people would start to get more at odds. Because change is a scary thing."

Jon Karl: "When Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, did you think even for a moment that the cause was lost?" ...

Vicki Kennedy: "I didn't because I believed in this president. I believed in the Speaker. I believed in the members of Congress and I believe in the American people."

POST-3/21 POLITICS: Sunday’s earthquake could make Scott Brown look like a speed bump -- THE NEW CONVENTIONAL WISDOM (at least for today): Rather than dragging down Dems, President Obama’s health plan could turn out to be a net positive for the midterms by goosing his base, re-engaging new Obama voters, giving his party something clear to promote, and providing a blunt instrument for whacking Rs. Obama’s triumph has put Republicans back on the defensive, and even some of them are wondering if they peaked eight months too soon. Top GOP officials tell us they plan to push a REPEAL strategy this fall, but that’s a talk-radio pipe dream: You want to run on taking stuff AWAY from Americans? Not gonna happen. (David Axelrod told us his side will portray the repeal movement as wanting "to put the insurance companies back in the driver’s seat.”) In the House districts where a “yes” vote looked like a death warrant, strategists contend that health care will help Dems resurrect the OBAMA BUMP of new voters who elected Ds in these tough districts.

DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) tells Alexander “Morning Score” Burns: “Who am I to give my Republican colleagues advice, but if they want to run on, 'Repeal the bill,' we say: Make my day. … They will be clearly siding with the insurance industry that's spent millions of dollars trying to defeat this. They will be siding with the industry to try to prevent kids from getting coverage."

BOTH SIDES MAY GET THEIR WISH: Ds hope Rs push repeal. And Rs hope Ds keep talking about health care (“an issue they’re upside down on”) more than jobs.

Adam Nagourney, above the fold -- “Political Memo: For G.O.P., United Stand Has Drawbacks, Too”: “Many provisions of the bill that go into effect this year — like curbs on insurance companies denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, or the expansion of prescription drug coverage for the elderly — are broadly popular with the public. The more contentious ones, including the mandate for the uninsured to obtain coverage, do not take effect for years. And in a week when Democrats are celebrating the passage of a historic piece of legislation, Republicans find themselves again being portrayed as the party of no, associated with being on the losing side of an often acrid debate and failing to offer a persuasive alternative agenda.”

Rep. PAUL RYAN of Wisconsin, top Republican on the House Budget Committee, and one of the Republicans named to the president’s deficit commission, told us yesterday in a video interview in his office (with a Packers helmet just out of the shot): “It hasn’t even been 12 hours since this thing passed so we need to regroup and think things through. But obviously we’re not for keeping this law. We should repeal it and replace it with reform. … We do believe we should repeal this but not just to go back to the status quo that we knew yesterday. That wasn’t sustainable either. … This is a government takeover of our healthcare system. It is the government basically running the entire healthcare system, turning large insurers into de facto public utilities, depriving people of choice, depriving people of options, raising people’s prices, raising taxes when we need new jobs. And they’re taking all this money out of Medicare and they’re not using it to make Medicare more solvent, they’re treating Medicare like a piggybank to fund this other entitlement. And I don’t think people on Medicare are going to look too kindly on that.”

Ryan, who said he stayed up till 4 a.m. because he was so keyed up after the debate, sat down with us after his P90X workout: “Ikeep my body fat between 6 and 8 percent. I weigh 163 pounds. I’m 6-2 -- kind of a skinny guy.” He calls the health-reform bill “a fiscal Frankenstein.” Video (produced and shot by Sara Olson, Matt Sobocinski and Alexander "Trow" Trowbridge)

ROBERT GIBBS previewed the months ahead, during his briefing: “[O]n financial reform, on campaign finance, on getting our economy moving again, all of the host of issues that -- immigration reform and energy -- that we’ve talked about still being on the docket, I think the President will continue to reach out to Democrats and Republicans that want to make a positive effort on these issues. … [I]f people want to campaign on taking tax cuts away from small businesses, taking assistance away from seniors getting prescription drugs, and want to take away a mother knowing that their child can't be discriminated against by an insurance company -- if that's the platform that others want to run on, taking that away from families and small businesses, then we’ll have a robust campaign on that.”

Conservative writer David Frum was first to articulate the contrarian view convincingly, with a FrumForum post called “Waterloo”: “Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s. It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But: (1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs. (2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.”

Frum later tried to soften the blow to his team with column for CNN.com, “How GOP can rebound from its 'Waterloo'”: “I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. … Now the overheated talk is about to get worse. Over the past 48 hours, I've heard conservatives compare the House bill to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 -- a decisive step on the path to the Civil War. Conservatives have whipped themselves into spasms of outrage and despair that block all strategic thinking.”

**A message from Allstate: Join Allstate in supporting the STANDUP Act. This bill would create a national driver’s licensing law giving all teens on-the-road experience gradually. Learn more at allstate.com/STANDUP. **

--“Clyburn decries lack of decorum,” by David Rogers: “House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said Monday that the breakdown in House decorum over the weekend — accompanied by protesters outside the Capitol hurling insults and spitting on a black lawmaker — is a ‘festering sore’ that runs back to last September, when a Republican yelled ‘You lie’ at President Barack Obama. Clyburn said ‘the jeering, the people out there carrying nasty signs and spitting on people’ reminded him of the 1960s, when he was subject to abuse as a black civil rights protester in the South. And Clyburn said the fact that a Texas Republican yelled ‘baby killer’ inside the House chamber itself as a Democrat spoke Sunday night and Republicans ‘egged on’ protesters in the House gallery earlier in the day is ‘what endangers this society.’ ‘I see a larger breakdown,’ said Clyburn, who pressed unsuccessfully last September for his South Carolina colleague, Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, to go to the well of the House and apologize to the full chamber for insulting Obama. ‘I said that’s what this would lead to, and we saw it [Sunday] … If something is not done, it is going to grow, fester like a sore and then run’ …

“The line ‘fester like a sore and then run’ comes from a Langston Hughes poem that’s also invoked in the Lorraine Hansberry play ‘Raisin in the Sun,’ about a black family on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. Clyburn himself is a product of the civil rights movement in his native South Carolina, and his comments reflect an underlying racial current in the bitter health care debate. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) was spat on by a protester while walking to the Capitol on Saturday. Another protester yelled a racial epithet at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). Clyburn himself has been subject to racist mail, including an anonymous fax sent to his South Carolina office in the past week, addressed to ‘James the Slimy N—— Clyburn’ and with a drawing of a hangman’s noose and crude gallows.”

BREAKING -- "States Say Overhaul Will Bust Already Strained Medicaid Budget," by Bloomberg's Pat Wechsler: "Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania are among 12 states preparing lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the burden imposed by the legislation, according to statements by state attorneys general. The health-care overhaul will make as many as 15 million more Americans eligible for Medicaid nationwide starting in 2014 and will cost the states billions to administer. ... The states that say they will sue are Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington."

DRIVING THE DAY -- At 11:15 a.m., “the President will deliver remarks and sign the health insurance reform bill in the East Room. The Vice President will introduce the President. … The event will also be streamed live on www.WhiteHouse.gov/live. Following the signing, the President will travel to the Department of Interior, where [at 12:05 p.m.] he will deliver remarks on the health insurance reform bill. The Vice President will introduce the President.” At 3 p.m., “the President will meet with Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar on the ongoing consultations with Congress on the START treaty in the Oval Office.” At 5 p.m., “the President will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel in the Oval Office.”

MOOD MUSIC – Times of London lead story: “Israel defies Obama over Jerusalem settlements: … Fresh from his historic victory to reform American healthcare, the US leader is to be confronted, within hours, with a foreign policy crisis. This time Mr Obama must resolve the worst breakdown in relations in decades between America and its closest regional ally, Israel, and try to get the Arab-Israeli peace process moving again.”

THE BIG IDEA – “Health win boosts Obama [global] standing,” by POLITICO’s Laura Rozen and Ben Smith: "When Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu faced off with President Barack Obama over housing in Jerusalem earlier this month, he was facing a distracted American leader whose presidency hung in the balance. When he goes to the White House on Tuesday night, he’ll find Obama at the moment of his administration’s greatest success, a shift that may affect Obama’s negotiating power in ways both subtle and dramatic. Obama’s health care victory may prove a decisive pivot point in the way he is viewed both domestically and abroad and in how powerful a negotiator he is perceived to be by foreign leaders. And nowhere is that true more than in Israel, a place obsessed with American politics. … The White House said Monday that two leaders, Mexican President Felipe Calderone and Saudi King Abdullah, called Obama to congratulate him on the health care victory.”

QUOTE DU JOUR – Axelrod to reporters, per Kendra Marr: “I think this will sell itself. … The most important thing is that we implement it effectively, efficiently and with great accountability.”

Taking no chances, the White House announces Stop 1 on the sales tour: “President Barack Obama will return to Iowa City, Iowa, on Thursday … to discuss how health insurance reform will lower costs for small businesses and American families and give them more control over their health care … President Obama first announced his health care plan in Iowa City in May 2007, launching a grassroots campaign for reform that led directly to the legislation passed this week.”

2007 fact sheet, “Barack Obama’s Plan for a Healthy America” http://nyti.ms/bdRLnH … 2007 costs memo for the campaign, by outside experts: “[W]e estimate that the Obama health plan will require between $50 billion and $65 billion per year of new Federal funds when fully phased in.” ...9-page fact sheet on Obama-Biden health plan from the general

From Obama’s 2007 prepared remarks: “It's time to bring together businesses, the medical community, and members of both parties around a comprehensive solution to this crisis, and it's time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair. … The very first promise I made on this campaign was that as president, I will sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term in office. Today I want to lay out the details of … a plan that not only guarantees coverage for every American, but also brings down the cost of health care and reduces every family's premiums by as much as $2500. This second part is important because, in the end, coverage without cost containment will only shift our burdens, not relieve them. … If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will spend on premiums. That will be less. … The time has come for affordable, universal health care in America.”

Kendra Marr reports that on that previous Iowa City stop, Obama “met hundreds of supporters, who shared their personal health care stories. ‘It was really the energy and the concerns and the problems of people at the grassroots that propelled this forward,’ Axelrod said. On Thursday Obama will walk through the bill and highlight the immediate reforms, said Axelrod.”

A NEW PLAYBOOK FEATURE –INSIDE THE BILL – AP’s Mary Clare Jalonick: “A requirement tucked into the nation's massive health care bill will make calorie counts impossible for thousands of restaurants to hide and difficult for consumers to ignore. More than 200,000 fast food and other chain restaurants will have to include calorie counts on menus, menu boards and even drive-throughs. The new law, which applies to any restaurant with 20 or more locations, directs the Food and Drug Administration to create a new national standard for menu labeling, superseding a growing number of state and city laws. … It was added to the health bill with the support of the restaurant industry, which is facing different laws from cities and states.”

GEORGE WILL says the bill cements Dems as “the party of government”: “Health care will not be seriously revisited for at least a generation, so the system's costliest defect -- untaxed employer-provided insurance, which entangles a high-inflation commodity, health care, with the wage system -- remains. … As America's teetering tower of unkeepable promises grows, so does the weight of government, in taxes and mandates that limit investments and discourage job creation. America's dynamism, and hence upward social mobility, will slow, as the economy becomes what the party of government wants it to be -- increasingly dependent on government-created demand. Promoting dependency is the Democratic Party's vocation. … Democrats believe, plausibly, that middle-class entitlements are instantly addictive … Forbidding insurance companies to deny coverage to persons because of pre-existing conditions, thereby making the risk pool more risky, will increase the cost of premiums. Public complaints will be smothered by more subsidies. So dependency will grow.”

WILL’s silver lining: “Congressional Democrats will not soon be herded into other self-wounding votes -- e.g., for a cap-and-trade carbon rationing scheme as baroque as the health legislation. During the Democrats' health care monomania, the nation benefited from the benign neglect of the rest of their agenda. Now the nation may benefit from the exhaustion of their appetite for more political risk.”

DRUDGE got a stimulus package from the vote: “THANKS FOR MAKING MONDAY THE SECOND MOST-VIEWED DAY IN 15-YEAR HISTORY OF DRUDGE REPORT! THE PAGE WAS SEEN 36,407,277 TIMES FROM OVER 50 COUNTRIES [including 4 vists from Swaziland, and 17 from Malawi.”

SAWYER: “Pretty amazing things being said. The Economist said that you are arguably the most powerful woman in American history. A Brown University professor has said you are certainly the most powerful Speaker in 100 years.”

PELOSI: “That sounds good. (LAUGH) I don't take it personally, except I take it as a compliment for all women. Because as the first woman Speaker, I certainly wanted to demonstrate that we could get a job done that has eluded others for -- for a century. But it's exciting, because … my sisters here in the Congress, this was a big issue for us, because women know as caregivers, as mothers and the rest, how important this is.”

SAWYER: “And when the Republicans say they can run against you in November and this will be their ticket to win?”

PELOSI: “They've been saying that -- they said it in '06. They said it in '08. And we believe that when we can clear the fog of the misrepresentations that have been made about this legislation, largely instigated by the insurance companies to keep them reaping obscene benefits -- profits at the expense of the American People -- that we will do justice behind it.”

(The Economist’s “Lexington” column had written: “Mrs Pelosi is arguably the most powerful woman in American history. There have been female governors, secretaries of state and Supreme Court justices, but only one female speaker.”)

--HuffPo, “Health Care Post-Mortem: Dems Feel the Wind at Their Back, GOP Hoisted With Its Own Cynical Petard,” by Arianna Huffington: “On the eve of the historic health care vote, President Obama spoke to House Democrats. He began his speech by quoting Abraham Lincoln: ‘I am not bound to win, but I'm bound to be true. I'm not bound to succeed, but I'm bound to live up to what light I have.’ Listening to the final floor speeches that followed put into stark relief the key difference between the two parties. The Democrats, as they had been throughout the yearlong process, were fractious -- often frustratingly so -- but engaged in the debate about how to best deliver health care reform to the American people. The Republicans, on the other hand, were so united in their lockstep refusal to be a serious part of the process that it's hard to even call them the opposition. … Yes, the final bill is deeply flawed. … But there is no denying that the lives of millions of Americans will be improved because of what the Democrats have done. Republicans, meanwhile, have been hoisted with their own deeply cynical petard.”

--Daily Caller, “IRS looking to hire thousands of armed tax agents to enforce health care laws,” by Jonathan Strong: “Top IRS officials have been working with Democrats on Capitol Hill to determine how the agency will enforce President Obama’s new health care law. Republican lawmakers estimate the legislation will require the hiring of many thousands of new tax enforcement agents. While it’s still not known exactly how many will be hired, here’s what’s clear: Under the new law, the IRS is required to fine taxpayers thousands of dollars if they do not purchase health insurance. In order for the government to enforce compliance, tax authorities will need information, for the first time, about people’s health care. Collecting that data will require more IRS personnel.”

ALSO DRIVING THE CONVO:

--Detroit Free Press A1, “Insider Stupak’s Decision: A health vote falls in place after phone call from Obama,” by Todd Spangler: “Here's how John Dingell described Bart Stupak, his congressional colleague and occasional duck blind buddy, on Monday: ‘He's got to be one of the best poker players I know.’ … The call from Obama came via cell phone about 3 p.m. Stupak walked to the House floor. They had a deal, the president said. … Stupak knew when President Barack Obama called with a deal clincher -- an executive order reiterating that no federal funds would be spent on abortions -- that it was as good as he was going to get. … Stupak's good friend Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat who has served longer in the House than anyone and has been pressing for health care reform for more than 50 years, was prodding him. ‘It was tugging at me that I could stand in the way of Mr. Dingell's 50-something-year goal,’ Stupak said.”

--Ceci Connolly’s month-in-the-making, 4,600-word tick-tock, “61 days from near-defeat to victory: How Obama revived his health-care bill”: “The remarkable change in political fortunes thrust Obama into a period of uncertainty and demonstrated the ability of one person to control the balance of power in Washington. On Jan. 19, that person seemed to be Brown. But as the next 61 days would show, culminating in Sunday night's historic vote, the fate of the legislation ultimately rested in the hands of Obama, who in the hours before Brown's victory was growing increasingly frustrated as Pelosi [during an Oval Office strategy session with Dem. leaders a few hours before the polls closed] detailed why no answer was in sight. There went health-care reform. There went history. ‘I understand that, Nancy,’ he finally snapped. ‘What's your solution?’”

--NYT A1, “Next Big Issue? Social Security Pops Up Again,” by Jackie Calmes: “Now that landmark legislation overhauling the health insurance system is about to become law, addressing Social Security’s solvency could well become the next big thing for President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Central to the health care changes are hundreds of billions of dollars in reductions in Medicare spending over time and expansions of Medicaid. As some administration officials acknowledge, that effectively takes those fast-growing entitlement programs off the table for deficit reduction just as Mr. Obama’s bipartisan commission to reduce the mounting national debt gets to work. That leaves Social Security, the other big entitlement benefits program and one that Mr. Obama has suggested in the past that he is willing to tackle. While its looming problems are not of the scale of those afflicting Medicare, it now stands as the likeliest source of the sort of large savings needed to bring projected annual deficits to sustainable levels, many budget analysts agree. And, they say, packaging future reductions in the retirement program that Democrats zealously defend with tax increases that Republicans typically oppose would have the makings of a grand compromise to shrink the debt.”

--NYT lead story, “Google Shuts China Site in Dispute Over Censorship,” by Miguel Helft and David Barboza: “Just over two months after threatening to leave China because of censorship and intrusions from hackers, Google on Monday closed its Internet search service there and began directing users in that country to its uncensored search engine in Hong Kong. … [I]t appears to have angered officials in China ... The state-controlled Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed official with the State Council Information Office describing Google’s move as ‘totally wrong.’”

--WaPo A1, “With bill passed, November is now,” by Dan Balz: “President Obama scheduled a Tuesday White House signing ceremony for landmark health-care legislation that passed the House on Sunday, as Democrats and Republicans began shifting their focus to November elections that seem certain to become a referendum on the most significant social legislation enacted in half a century. … But both sides made it clear Monday that the battle over the package is far from over. … As Republicans prepared to campaign on a pledge to try to repeal the legislation, Obama and the Democrats will work to keep voters focused on the new benefits, rather than the size, cost or complexity of the bill. … Other issues, such as the economy, may loom larger by November than the heated debate that has raged for more than a year over Obama's health-care initiative. But health care will become a proxy, say strategists in both parties, for the continuing debate over whether the Obama era represents a return to bigger and more intrusive government.”

--AP, “ACORN disbanding because of money woes, scandal,” by Michael Tarm: “Once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues - six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. … Several of its largest affiliates, including ACORN New York and ACORN California, broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization and restore revenue that ran dry in the wake of the video scandal. … ACORN's board decided to close remaining state affiliates and field offices by April 1 because of falling revenues, with some national operations will continue operating for at least several weeks before shutting for good.”

--WSJ A6, “In Holder's Woes, a Déjà Vu,” by Evan Perez: “Eric Holder has spent much of his first year as attorney general trying to reverse a series of Bush administration policies. But the effort now threatens to derail his career. From detainee trials to CIA interrogation programs to the role of special prosecutors at the Justice Department, Mr. Holder has been assailed from the left and right for his performance as the nation's top law-enforcement official. … The right is critical of Mr. Holder's decision to release Bush-era memos on the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation program; his appointing a prosecutor to review possible wrongdoing by CIA officers; his overseeing plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison; and his handling of the Christmas airline bombing suspect. For the left, Mr. Holder hasn't gone far enough. Some fault him for not punishing the former Justice lawyers who wrote the CIA memos, for adopting legal positions similar to the Bush administration, and for bungling the sales pitch in New York for the 9/11 trial. … A senior White House official says the president stands behind Mr. Holder, and that the 9/11 trial decision has become ‘overdramatized and oversimplified.’ … The maelstrom has prompted former allies to question whether Mr. Holder can emerge undamaged.”

BUSINESS BURST -- WaPo A1, “Senate panel passes sweeping financial-regulation bill,” by David Cho and Brady Dennis: “The Senate banking committee voted along party lines Monday to transform the regulation of financial markets, sending another piece of far-reaching legislation to the full Senate a day after Congress approved an overhaul of the nation's health system. After Republicans decided to save their objections for the Senate floor, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the committee chairman, pushed forward with a financial-regulation bill that sheds several compromises reached with opposition lawmakers and instead hews more closely to the blueprint advocated by the Obama administration.”

--FT A1, “Geithner warns US could lose regulation initiative,” by Tom Braithwaite: “Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, warned lawmakers on Monday that ‘America will lose this opportunity to set the global agenda’ on financial regulation if Congress fails to complete passage of legislation to reform oversight of the financial system. He spoke just as the Senate banking committee voted out a financial regulatory bill without the Republican support necessary for the legislation to pass a final vote in the Senate, but Republicans offered hope that they could eventually reach agreement after the Easter break.”

SPORTS BLINK – NCAA story lines – AP -- “DUKE'S BIG MEN: Duke's "Big Three" handle most of the scoring. It's the big men doing the dirty work underneath who have helped the Blue Devils advance to the round of 16. What was considered a serious liability for Duke - a lack of reliable size in the paint - has become an unsung strength. The Blue Devils are better equipped to deal with the off nights that sometimes plague teams that thrive on 3-point shooting.” … “KENTUCKY -- MILLER'S TIME: The conversation has taken place so many times this season, even Darius Miller has lost count. At some point during a practice or a game - or both - Kentucky coach John Calipari will approach his talented, if sometimes timid, sophomore and tell Miller to get on the floor and get after it. The quiet Miller's reply is usually a simple nod, even if the result sometimes leaves his coach shaking his head. Finally, however, Calipari's message appears to be getting through.”

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The STANDUP Act (H.R. 1895) creates national standards for GDL laws that would give novice teen drivers on-the-road experience gradually. When states have implemented comprehensive GDL programs, the number of fatal and injury crashes among 16-year-old drivers have fallen by up to 40%. They reduce in-car distractions like texting, limit nighttime driving and the number of friends in the car, and establish minimum hours of behind the wheel training and supervision.

The Republicans have done damage to their cause through their methods in this fight. This is probably the biggest blunder they have made in the last few years second only to nominating John McCain and Sarah Palin for their national ticket. They will lose additional seats in November and will be reduced to the party of angry, foul mouth members. It is really too bad because they have some good people who have been forced to take a back seat by the pack of bullies running the party. Never mind starting over on health care. Start over on your own party's leadership and message!

I don't think so. If that was true why in the world would this administration has to run around the country still trying to sell this plan to the American People. The more we learn about what is in this bill the more we despise it. Democrats my have a week or two of glory but that's about it. The November elections will still be a very hard sell to the American People. Washington must think no one is following this madness and the cost. While people are still losing jobs and homes I don't think they can be sold on this bill. Obama has left them out in the cold. Only banks, insurance and large corporation got any help. The Pubic got expanded unemployment checks only. Nothing in this bill to change that, is there?Fancy433

You can find brilliant analysts on both sides of the spectrum, and a few in the middle as well. I surely am not brilliant, but I do think. I think I think like many non-gifted, non-brilliant Americans, and what I think is that this stinks. I said to myself, "Self, it'll be a month or two, then the liberals will be on the road for carbon-this, and green-that." Imagine my surprise when it took less than 24 hours. The old 'spend money to save money' mantra is getting old. Do I really care that the Republicans got thumped on this one? Sure, but it's not the viability of the party that concerns me. It's the viability of the country. You simply cannot spend spend spend and survive. It can't be done, no matter what the dulcet toned president says. So......let the games begin. If in the fullness of time our mighty experiment fails, I'm sure it won't be the folks on the government dole called upon to fix it, or in the worst case, rule it. You say I'm being overly dramatic? Perhaps, but I'm not the one that put my entire presidency, the entire fate of the nation, on a vote that was a cliffhanger until the end. You may say he had a mandate. Sure....then explain why zero republicans voted for it, 10% of Democrats didn't either, and Pelosi practically needed a truncheon to get her other members to vote. I mean...really..if it's such a sagacious plan, why the razor thin margins (I'd say the margins were cut with a micro-tome, but I doubt today's educated even know what that is.)

PS. If you folks think that Ron Paul is our future, you need a double chai tea lava java shot from Starbucks.

"The Politics of health care favor the Dems" now? Have you seen the latest polls???? Don't think so. This was a victory for Obama and Congress, indeed, but over and against the American people, sadly...

Americans are now free from the debate of health care and onto the benefits of health care reform. As more people learn how they actually benefit from passage of this legislation the more endeared the program will become. The boogeyman health care reform was presented to them by the right will cost republicans, the bet they made to make health care President Obama's Waterloo, to listen to the fringe of their party, just cost them dearly.